Bad Characterization: The Unsolved Casefiles
by Pen Against Sword
Summary: You look around. What do you see? Business people, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. Writers. Writers who write FFVII fan fiction. And write it badly. These are the stories of butcherings and murders. Weep for the victims. Coauthored with Mengde.
1. Cloud Strife, Mengde

**Case Study: Cloud Strife**

**The Whiny Indecisive Pussy Factor**

The protagonist! Central character to the story, the progression of the plot and oftentimes the progression of all the other characters revolves around this one pivotal figure, this hero du jour, this modern-day Heracles.

Why the fuck, then, do you people insist on making him a whiny, indecisive pussy?

If I wanted to read fiction with a protagonist like this, I'd go read some crap feminist romance novel about a bonny lass in ancient Scotland who eventually comes into her own and realizes her individuality and power as a woman in a classic example of shit dogma carefully dressed in the guise of the dog barf we classify as "romance." When I read FFVII fics I expect Cloud to kick ass and be a stone-cold killer with a sensitive side, not a limp-dicked girly-man who probably sleeps with hair curlers.

**Case in Point:**

"The party was getting ready to head out from Icicle Inn – to be precise, they'd _been_ ready for an hour, but Cloud still wasn't out of the bathroom.

"Eventually the door burst open in a roiling cloud of steam and Cloud flounced out in his pink Bebe tee and flares. 'Sorry I'm late everybody, I couldn't get this damn cowlick to lie down – oh, and _somebody_ was _hogging_ the _mirror!_'

"Tifa flipped him off and asked, 'So you're finally ready? Fine, let's go after Sephiroth.'

"'No!' Cloud gasped, pantomiming a petite fainting spell. 'I fear… REJECTION!'

"'We're going to kill him, not ask him out!'

"'Well if we kill him who's to escort me to my debutante ball?' he demanded. 'Besides, I still haven't asked him how he does that _fab _hair of his. Totally delish, I swear.'"

**In Short:**

Look at what you all have done. LOOK UPON THE SUM OF YOUR WORKS AND WEEP BITTER TEARS.


	2. Barret Wallace, PAS

**Case Study: B-dawg Barret Wallace**

Barret Wallace: rowdy, rough-and-tumble, sturdy, strong, muscle-bound leader of Avalanche. Also a caring father, devoted to his only adopted daughter, Marlene, his only link left to his late best friend, Dyne.

He kicks Cloud into gear! He delivers the pep-talks! He swears until your ears (or eyes in the case of reading) _BLEED!_

But what have your stunted, caffeine-spawned, poor excuses for any kind of intelligent literature reduced him to? A pathetic sham of his former self, spewing ebonics like particularly chunky vomit, wearing horrible hats with ramrod straight bills and clothes that are so baggy they can be used as parachutes.

When I read about Barret, I want to see a gruff bear of a man, ready to defend his comrades, strong and unyielding in the face of unstoppable odds—not some shitty interpretation of Mr. T, who deals drugs to small children in dark alleyways and has not a single intelligent thing to say for himself.

**Case In Point:**

"Yo, 'sup, my nigs!" Barret leapt onto the scene, bullets blazing, tricked out in his Scarface Al Capone t-shirt and Girbaud pants.

The hulking monster currently threatening the lives of the heroes of Avalanche descended upon Barret at once, drawn by his flashy Lakers hat. Unfortunately for the fiend's sensitive eyesight, it was instantly blinded by the reflection from Barret's massive amount of bling bling. The sizzling goo from its eye turned acidic at the sound of Barret's lingo-laden jibes, melting into its brain and sending it to the ground, dead.

"I PITY DA FOOL DAT THINK HE CAN TAKE ON DA B-DAWG!" Barret shouted in pure gangsta triumph. His bling bling clanked and jingled like the herald of victory bells. Barret proceeded to stomp on the monster's poor, smelly, smoking corpse with his impossibly white Air Force Ones.

"I GET TA STOMPIN' IN MY AIR FORCE ONES!" he practically shrieked, beating on his chest like a gorilla in the wild. "B-DAWG MAKES THE MONEY, SEE! B-DAWG GETS THE HONEYS, GEE!" Fortunately for everyone around him, the authoress and author dropped a big-ass rock into the story and knocked him the fuck out.


	3. Tifa Lockheart, Mengde

**Case Study: Tifa Lockhart**

**How Big Is Too Big?**

Ah, the love interest. At least, the love interest that didn't get her shit ruined with a giant fucking sword. Say hi Aerith. The love interest often brings out the best in the protagonist and also allows for the creation of some really steamy love scenes – or, in common parlance, "lemons."

However, the lot of you are interested in precisely one thing. Read my lips, assuming you've disengaged your eyes from the subject of your unrestrained lust: boobs.

The Tifas I've read have had the majority of their personality invested in their massive mammaries. What is it with you lot and making her a senseless twit who's interested in naught but riding the horsie with Cloud? I know she's well-endowed, but there's a point where it becomes just fucking ridiculous. Don't get me wrong – I like a good shag as much as the next guy. Treat your woman like your airplane: get inside her ten times a day and take her to heaven and back. But with jugs like those, the only place this plane's going is down. On Cloud. Damn, that was a bad pun.

**Case in Point:**

"Cloud was sitting in Final Heaven, having a beer and just relaxing after a long day of delivering packages. He was just beginning to consider turning in when he heard the sound of the doorframe behind him splintering.

"Tifa finally managed to get herself inside, the act taking the door off of its hinges as she forced her chest through it. She regarded Cloud with smoking eyes the color of passion.

"'Hey, you hot stud,' she purred. 'Let's do it.'

"Cloud began to ease himself off of his barstool in an attempt to get away. 'Uh, listen, hun, I sorta got a, y'know, headache, and I was thinking…'

"Tifa stalked over to him and presented him with her enormous profile for a moment before turning hard on her heel to face him, the movement sending glasses and bottles flying. 'What?' she growled.

"'A headache. I have a –'

"He didn't get to say more than that, because a second later he was eating a faceful of erect, leather-clad nipple. The two of them crashed to the floor as Tifa began to take his pants off while he struggled beneath her bulk, gasping for air.

"Next door, the neighbors exchanged glances when they felt a small seismic tremor. 'They're at it again.'"


	4. Aeris, PAS

**Case Study: The Necromancy of Aerith Gainsborough**

You may wonder what the hell is meant by necromancy when I refer to sweet, saintly, lovely, Aerith. But here's a newsflash, people: sweet, saintly, lovely Aerith…is _DEAD_. Deceased. Passed-away. Gone for good. Kicked the bucket. Croaked. Finished. History. _Ancient_ history. Done.

And yet, you just can't let sleeping dogs—or should I say rotting dead girls?—lie, can you? You've gotta beat the rotting carcass of a trampled horse until the maggots complain and decide to move to some other stink-heap.

Death is supposed to be a release, people! I know _I'd_ complain if someone raised me from the sweet arms of death to have me screw Sephiroth and save the world _again_. It's like, jeez, she sacrificed her life for the planet once already, what _more_ do you _want?_ I know! Let's chain her eternal soul to a block of ice on Pluto with only a Rubix cube for entertainment! That should equal the torture of being brought back to life a million times over…

**Case in Point:**

"Cllllooooouuudd, ohhhh, Cllllooooooud," Aerith moaned, low in her throat, lost in the throes of her deep, longing hunger for him.

More precisely, her deep, longing hunger for his brains. She wanted any brains she could get her decaying hands on. That's the way zombies work, ya know. Mmm, gray matter, fruit of her undead soul.

After being resurrected from the grave so many times, the spirit of the planet got a little exasperated with the Cetra using up all the lifestream energy to maintain a solid bodily form, so it just smacked her in the face with her smelly, drippy, rotting mess of a body she had had before. Incidentally, there was a neat hole in her chest where Masamune had stabbed into her, and if one so desired, and if one could dodge the groping, slimy, brain-seeking hands of zombie Aerith, she made a good shield with a peephole through which one could scan one's surroundings.

"Aerith," he chirped with his girl-man lisp. "I already _told_ you. I _need_ my brain! How else am I supposed to do my _makeup?_ Now get out of the bathroom! I can't smell my herbal aromatherapy jasmine-cucumber-mango-lavender-fruity-paradise-twist candles!"

"Braaaaaaainsssss…" Aerith brandished the straw Tifa had kindly provided her with, trying to shove it in Cloud's left ear so she could suck out his precious, delicious thought-processes.

Fortunately for Cloud, some other dumb bitch began to write a story that brought Aerith back from the dead so that she could have a sordid love affair with Red XIII and defeat a jealous Tifa, so the wet, gooey version of Aerith promptly vanished, leaving naught but a stinking puddle in her wake.


	5. Red XIII, Mengde

**Case Study: Red XIII**

**Chewtoy**

I have become a transparent eyeball, delivered valedictions forbidding mourning, and measured out my life in coffee-spoons, but I have never seen a character more intelligent than Red XIII. This Artemis Fowl bitch? Red XIII could beat him at the Star Trek trivia challenge any day of the week. HAL 9000? Well, it might be close, but if Red got into the shower to keep from being heard, HAL wouldn't be able to read his lips because he doesn't have any. Another win for the feline-canine genius.

Too bad I haven't seen much of his intelligence displayed in anything I've read. Or watched, for that matter. He had a total of one fucking line in AC. "There are still children with the stigma." No fucking duh, there's this kid standing right behind you with blotches all over him. Terrific. I would let this go because it's apparently canon that he's an idiot, but it's just inexcusable. The lot of you have him playing dead on command and fetching sticks, or acting like some love-cuddle pet. It shows through in all your other writing, too. I've developed an equation that measures the other characters' intelligence against Red's. It looks like this:

If Red's IQ is less than 5...

Then Other Characters' IQs equal negligible.

**Case in Point:**

It was another ubiquitous AVALANCHE meet-up, the sort that started new adventures going or were fodder for various crappy one-shots. Cloud was off doing some coke in a corner, Tifa was at the bar serving the men drinks like a good woman should be, Aerith was dead and not in attendance, Barret was out pulling drive-by shootings, Cid was smoking, Vincent and Yuffie were humping prodigiously in a closet, Cait Sith wasn't there because nobody likes him and ever uses him in any fiction, and Red XIII was sleeping by the bar.

Cloud finished snorting and started jumping around wildly, screaming about how Nirvana was the best band ever. He landed next to Red XIII and pulled a red, squeaky ball out of his pocket. "YOU WANT THE BALL, RED? HUH DO YA? YOU WANT THE BALL?"

Red XIII opened one eye, stared contemptuously at Cloud… and then jumped up, spun around in a circle, started wagging his tail, and barked.

"GO GET 'ER!" Cloud threw, but kept his grip on the ball. Red XIII leaped after the projectile that had never been thrown and came to an abrupt halt against the far wall. "GOTCHA!"

Red XIII shook his head in a "oh, you" kind of fashion because he couldn't talk. Wait, never mind, he could. "I totally knew you didn't throw it. Totally."

"WHATEVER! GO GET IT!" Cloud chucked the ball out the front door. Red XIII scampered after it and in the process ran right in front of a speeding truck. It hurt, but he staggered back inside, ball gripped in his teeth, and dropped it on the floor in front of Tifa, since Cloud had OD'd and was face-down with blood draining out of his nose.

"Aww," Tifa crooned. "Whoosagooboy? WHOOSAGOOBOY?"

"Me," Red XII said sheepishly.

"WHOOSAPRETTYGOOBOY?"

"Me."

Then she started tickling him and he rolled around and purred because he was so affectionate and not at all a reserved, withdrawn genius.


	6. Yuffie Kisaragi, PAS

**Case Study: Yuffie Kisaragi**

**When ADD Makes Babies With Crack-Addiction**

Yuffie always seems to run around on a drug-induced high in every fanfiction I read featuring her. Now, maybe it's just me, but I think there's more to every person than permanent bags under his or her eyes from snorting cocaine and a tendency to say "grossness."

Sure, she's the youngest in the group, and sure, she's annoying in the game, but _annoying _and _young _does not equal _stupid as a pile of ape shit._ I wonder, do you people think that having a lot of energy causes your brain to liquefy and run out your ear canals? Because by this point, Yuffie must be feeding zombie Aerith stew made of her gray matter.

_COME ON, PEOPLE!_ She's a ninja. She can't be _completely incompetent_. She's had TRAINING for this stuff. It's okay to dislike her character, to properly portray her as an obnoxious young'un, but the tripe I've had to force-feed myself is worthy of the ninth level of Hell.

And furthermore, we _understand_ that she likes materia. That's not hard to figure out, but she doesn't eat, sleep, breathe, and have children with materia. Last time I checked, summons don't have reproductive capabilities, but maybe that's just me.

**Case in Point:**

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" squealed Yuffie, straight into Barret's ear.

"'EY, DAWG! DAT AIN'T COO'!"

"But, BAAAAAAAAAAAAARRET," Yuffie whined. "I'm BORED! Entertain me!"

Barret just gave her an annoyed look, to which Yuffie replied by poking him at lightning speed on almost every square inch of flesh on his body. He would be bruised for weeks. Barret tried in vain to fight her off, and was soon overcome by her sheer energy. It scrambled his brains, causing a milky gray substance to trickle out of his ears.

"HEY, BARRET! YOU GOT A LITTLE BIT OF SOMETHING ON YOUR NECK THERE," Yuffie screeched. She decided she was bored with poking him and started running repeatedly into the wall, heedless of the fact that her forehead was starting to bleed. Profusely.

That only held her in thrall for a few more moments, as Yuffie had the brain power and attention-span of a dead rock. A _really dead_ rock. So Yuffie pranced off into another part of the ship, singing a song about fast times and shiny things. Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief, but they knew that they couldn't leave her to her own devices for too long, or else bad things would happen.

Imagine the surprise of Cloud when he managed to sneak down the hallway and to her room, hearing odd noises. He forced the door open, fearing that she might be in trouble (but at the same time mindful of the new polish-job on his nails) and took in the sight before him belatedly, choking down vomit.

Yuffie was taking it against the wall from all thirteen Knights of the Round, all the while squealing "NYUK NYUK NYUK" to everyone who would hear her.


	7. Vincent Valentine, Mengde

**Case Study: Vincent**

**These Wounds They Will Not Heal**

I do like Vincent Valentine a great deal. I based an entire rather epic fic around him, so I also think I know the guy fairly well. With that in mind, let me make this statement: most of you either hate him, or don't know him at all.

Vincent is a tormented soul, yes, but there are reasons for that. His guilt has a very specific source and cause; he doesn't start sighing and going all angsty when he sets his toaster to give him 'five' toast and it gives him 'six.' The toast is burned, the woe! Oh, humanity! You also seem to forget that beyond the guilt lies a deadly, trained professional, an ex-Turk in a superhuman body. This is a very dangerous man, not some crybaby bitch that goes and cuddles his safety blanket when somebody makes a joke about his masculinity knowing he's too much of a pussy to do anything about it. As we say here at CMU, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Oh, he's also not a vampire. Mmkay pumpkins?

**Case in point:**

"Vincent?" Tifa yelled in the general direction of the stairs. "VINCENT? CAN YOU TURN THAT DOWN?"

She couldn't hear herself think, much less yell at him, due to the blasting music emanating from the room he was renting out upstairs. It was a simultaneous overlay of Fallout Boy, Staind, and My Chemical Romance songs over the constantly repeating background track, "Creep" by Radiohead. He had a lot of brooding to do, so he tried to compress as much angst into any given moment as possible.

Giving up yelling, Tifa stormed up the stairs and banged on Vincent's door, which was covered in warning signs promising death and dismemberment to anyone who dared intrude into his sacred abode. She knew it was all for show and that he would never back any of it up because he was a giant wuss, but whatever.

The door opened a crack and a single ruby eye, surrounded by smudged and teary mascara, regarded her. "Leave me alone."

Tifa forced the door all the way open and shouted, "TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!"

"It's not shit. It expresses my inner torment."

"TURN IT DOWN ANYWAY!"

Vincent gave a long, copious sigh, about three seconds in length and accompanied by a full-body drooping, before he went over to his music player and turned the volume down to reasonable levels. He nearly tripped several times over all of the chains and related paraphernalia hanging off of his stupid dark baggy pants, which matched his black tee-shirt. On the front it boldly declared, "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same."

"Thank you," Tifa said, somewhat irritably.

"Do you want to hear my latest poem?" Vincent asked. Before Tifa could tell him otherwise, he launched into a recitation.

"Burning up inside my soul

"This darkness will consume me

"Tears of blood well up

"And scab over my eyes

"Blind, they match the color of my soul

"LUCRECIA!"

He bellowed the last line in an anguished, keening tone, then grabbed a nearby knife and started worrying at his wrists, slashing from side-to-side in a sadly ineffectual attempt at expressing his inner pain.

This continued for about five minutes, until Cloud, after finishing his hair for the day and reading his copy of _People_, took pity on Vincent and Blade Beamed him to death.


	8. Cid Highwind, PAS

**Case Study: Cid Motherf&ckin' Highwind**

Cid Highwind is the man that flies the airship, the pilot who has been to the stars and back in a world that once only dreamed of space travel. He's a spittin', cussin', rough-rider man who has experience under his belt and whoops ass with a spear. He loves the skies, and he loves Shera.

However, in fanfiction, that seems not to be the case.

Cid Highwind has turned into an atrocity beyond any pervert's dreams. Modern day sexual predators can have no way of competing with the abomination that is Cid Highwind's apparently sex-deprived persona. He hits on every single thing that moves, wants sex more than anything except cigarettes. Too bad he can't actually get anything!

'Cause guess what! Cid's an icky _old man_. No one ever thinks Cid is attractive, not even Shera because actually, he doesn't love Shera, and Shera doesn't love him because he beats her, did you know that? He regularly abuses her and drinks lots of whiskey and totally makes her have sex with him when she doesn't want to because Cid is a rapist!

Every other word Cid spits out that isn't a come on is some type of filthy curse—oh, pardon me, he doesn't curse. Actually, most of his speech consists of symbols. If he's not spewing ampersands and dollar signs or asking for sex, it's the next best thing—verbally abusing Shera or women in general or simply asking for alcohol and cigarettes. Oh, joy of joys, he's a character that _everyone can identify with_!

**Case In Point:**

"Hey, baby," Cid said to Tifa as several buttons on her shirt popped from the pressure of her massive breasts, "wanna ride the Cid-o-Coaster? Best time o' yer life, guar-un-teed."

Tifa swung her chest around haughtily, accidentally catching him in the face and leaving him with a bruise that would no doubt last for weeks. Shera would want to know where he got such an injury, since she always cared for him no matter how much abuse he heaped on her, but he would just smash another beer bottle over her skull and prop his muddy boots on the newly cleaned table, as usual. Ah, the good life. A concussed woman to lie stiffly in bed and a lukewarm beer in one hand. At the same time.

"Cid, you know I only want Cloud because only he understands my needs," she sneered at him.

"Well, #$&( $&() & ()(&$&( )(&&()(&&)&. That's a Q((&#$(()# shame, that is. You dunno what'cher missin', babe."

Just then, Yuffie walked by. Cid hocked a loogie in front of her feet and gave her what he approximated to be a sexy smile. She screamed "GROSSNESS" and ran away as fast as she could. Running his tongue along his brown, nicotine-rotted teeth in a way that he _knew_ was irresistible, he leaned back in his pilot's chair and said to himself, "Oh, yeah. They !#IR&#()&Q &#$ (# want me."

What Cid didn't notice was that a few of his beer cans weren't completely empty, so when he sat his muddy boots on the control panel like every smart pilot does, he knocked a few of them over. Beer spilled onto the console, shorting all the electrical workings of the panel.

The Highwind crashed and everyone died, except Cid, who crawled out of the wreckage, lit up a cigarette, then walked home to kick Shera in the jaw a few times and then force himself on her. Maybe if he kicked her enough times, she'd cook him a nice meal.


End file.
